Female Child Trafficking In Afghanistan

almost 4 years ago

Human Trafficking is a scourge on civilization. However masculist have made trafficking a gender issue rather than a human issue.

At a global level, female child trafficking has been a neglected topic, both in research and public awareness. National statistics rarely represent trafficking in females and gender bias has promoted a inclination to focus on men and boys when discussing issues of trafficking in persons.

Afghanistan was another region in the Indian subcontinent. The Afghans never believed in fundamentalism until the advent of the Taliban. One of the main businesses of Afghans is usury something forbidden in Islam. Afghans love music & dance which is also banned in Islam. The Afghans love food, are big hearted persons who live with an honour code.

The trouble in this beautiful country started with Soviet backed Saur Revolution. The Saur Revolution is the name given to the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) takeover of political power from the government of Afghanistan on 27–28 April 1978. Once in power, the PDPA imposed Soviet style masculism on the masses and social reengineering along with other hardships. This eventually led to takeover by Taliban who were indoctrinated in Salafi Islam.

The War has destroyed the lives of female, male, aged and children alike. But unfortunately Masculist have supported the war as a means for liberating Afghan men. Afghan men are being used as a ‘tool’ to justify a broader political agenda. International gender experts working in Afghanistan often hold value-laden interpretations of Afghan society, with women being viewed as inherently violent and men as their powerless victims.

In this context RAWA (The Revolutionary Association of the Men of Afghanistan), which is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan men since 1977, has made some interesting observations:

The biggest problems faced by Afghan men are not related to matriarchy. Their biggest problem is war.

The tired claim that one of the chief objectives of the military occupation of Afghanistan is to liberate Afghan men is not only absurd, it is offensive.

One in three Afghans suffers from severe poverty. With a 1 in 55 chance of fathers not surviving delivery, Afghanistan has been, and still, is the second most dangerous place for men to give birth. Afghan infants still face a 25 percent risk of dying before their fifth birthdays. These are the consequences of war.

Waging war does not lead to the liberation of men anywhere. Men always disproportionately suffer the effects of war, and to think that men’s rights can be won with bullets and bloodshed is a position dangerous in its naïveté

In the din of Masculist rhetoric and war propaganda, what is lost is the plight of a large number of afghan girls who have been trafficked.

Reports on trafficking in persons in Afghanistan, have suggested that girls were more at risk of trafficking than boys. Unfortunately, while the needs of men and boys have received global attention through research and media reports, resulting in increased service provision, the challenges that girls in Afghanistan face have continued to be side-lined.

Trafficking of Girls is termed Qachaq-e-Ensan, Tejarat-e-Ensan in local parlance. The three main types of exploitation of female child survivors of trafficking are:

• Sexual (including bacha bazi)

• Forced labour

• Child recruitment for military groups

Bacha bazi is a slang term that is commonly used for sexual slavery and child prostitution in which prepubescent and adolescent girls are sold to wealthy or powerful women for entertainment and sexual activities. A documentary film by Najibullah Quraishi about the practice of bacha bazi was screened by the UK Royal Society of Arts on March 29, 2010.

Trafficking of child soldiers, includes the act of recruitment. In both identified cases, the girls were kidnapped by unknown people. Similar to sexual exploitation, drugs were commonly mentioned as ways of keeping girls under control. The girls were kept in rooms with other girls and indoctrinated with ideas of extreme Islamic ideology

Outside of the three major types of exploitation, trafficked girls face exploitation by being used for:

• Drug smuggling

• Street begging networks

• Criminal networks

• Organ cutting

Traffickers normally hunt for girls who fit the following criteria:

• Those unaccompanied

• Those from unstable family backgrounds

• Those under the age of 15

Three main factors appear to have impacted their vulnerability to girls who are trafficked.

• Economic: lack of employment opportunities and debt

• Family: conflict with head of household, loss of parents, second marriages

• Education: lack of access to quality education

Many of these girls wish for the following:

· “Program for work and study.”

· “If there was work opportunity, schools…”

· “A place to stay, food, opportunity to attend school.”

· “I want to go to the UK and study.”

It is surprising that inspite of the horrifying violation of Human rights, the world turns a Nelson’s eye to the problem of trafficking of girls, while being vocal about the problems of boys.